Thankfully, no permanent damage. “Partial thickness burns” according to the ER doc. The left hand wasn’t bad at all. The burn on the right was partially up his arm done to the middle knuckle of his two middle fingers. It was worse than the right, but still not horrible. No nerve damage, doc said the skin should heal up in a few weeks. It’s iffy if he will be able to get back to work soon. Luckily, his normal days off are Monday and Tuesday anyway so we’ll see how he’s doing on Wednesday. Change bandages once or twice a day and keep it dry. And of course, The Zen Master being… well, The Zen Master, sat in the ER, completely calm and peaceful as the nurse… debrided his right arm and hand. Don’t know what that means? Google it. But whatever you do, DON’T do an image search. Yuck. Anyway, she did that… then bandaged him all up and showed me what to do at home and then advised us to wait for the doc for discharge instructions. And then she left. And then he cried. And, because he is who he is, he wasn’t crying because it hurt, or because he was worried about getting better or anything having to do with his own well-being. He was crying because he let people down. Because he felt stupid because it was a grease fire and, in a surge of panicked adrenaline, he threw the pot in the sink, which he knew was the worst possible thing to do. Because somebody had to get called in on their day off to finish his shift. Because he wasn’t even sure if they could finish his shift because the wall apparently got burned too and he wasn’t sure if they’d have to shut down the restaurant for a few days. And I hurt for him. Because I wish I could make him feel better, but unlike the burns, which I can put ointment on and bandage and help heal, he’s gonna have to work through the emotional stuff himself. All I can do is hold his hand…er… arm… no… shoulder? And try to make him smile (which I have to admit, I’m pretty good at).

I gotta say, he did get quite a bit of amusement When we changed the bandages the first time. Princess Punk got all excited when he started taking the bandages off.

“Oooooh, I wanna see!!!!”

I went into the bathroom with him and then left to get the gauze they gave us at the hospital. I should have been tipped off by the yellow hue to the once white pads that covered his right arm and hand. I came back into the bathroom to find Princess Punk holding The Peach, looking over The Zen Master’s shoulder. I could see the greenish tint to her face in the bathroom mirror.

I shouldn’t have looked.

I looked.

His left hand? Not bad. Looked like your average kitchen burn over the side of his hand and down his thumb. The right? Let me pause typing a moment while I gag. Ok… So it wasn’t really, super awful… He just had some blisters. Except they were huge. 3-5 (I didn’t look long enough to actually count) blisters along the worst part of the burn. Each was 2-3 inches in diameter. Like the size of a stack of silver dollars. Gross. The Zen Master was quite amused at the reactions of his wife and eldest daughter and actually ran back into the bedroom to get his phone so he could take a picture.

Yup… My husband.

But, being the good, loving wife that I am, I changed his bandages. And my hands only shook a little bit.

I’m sitting in the waiting area at the emergency room right now, waiting The Zen Master to arrive.

My phone rang about 20 minutes ago.

“So… Uh… I guess I’m going to the ER.”

“Wait… What??”

“I burned my hand.”

“Bad? Of course it was bad, why would you go to the ER if it wasn’t bad… Are you OK?”

“It looks pretty bad.”

“You’re going to Tiny-Hospital-In-Our-Town?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Oh? Um… Ok…”

I’m not exactly sure why he was surprised I am going too… Princess Punk is home with The Peach, it’s not like I’m leaving the toddler to fend for herself…

So here I sit…

Shit. They just told me they’re bringing him in by ambulance. Which means it’s worse than I was led to believe by his oh-so-calm attitude on the phone. I don’t call him The Zen Master for nothing.

Now I’m nauseous. It’s just his hand so it’s not life-threatening, but if it’s bad, he probably won’t be able to work, at least for awhile. Not like he gets sick leave. He does have short-term disability insurance but it’s not much.

I love my husband. But sometimes? I have to wonder why he has to be so gross.

It’s probably a man thing. The fact that I went into the kitchen this morning and found a sink with soggy dog food in the drain and a garbage bag in the can and another open on the floor probably has something to do with that pesky Y chromosome. Then I went into the bathroom and found a wet towel on the floor, next to a puddle of water. And this…

I’m really glad you shaved babe, but…

In case you can’t tell, that’s a ring in the sink made from an amalgam of water, shaving cream and freshly shaved stubble. Gross.

In my husband’s defense, he is actually very good about cleaning and whatnot. He’s the kitchen cleaner 90% of the time. 4 days out of 5, I come home to a tidy house. It’s the little things that drive me insane. And the little things happen to be especially disgusting. Like the wet sponge in the sink that grows bacteria faster that a petri dish seeded with staphylococci. Or the 2-3″ sticky yellowish spot in front of the toilet because he can’t give it one last good shake.

So… Yeah. I think that’s marriage in a nutshell.

Anyway. After I got over the annoyance and cleared up the kitchen enough to cook breakfast (the bathroom sink? That’s ALL him), I made a delicious breakfast for The Peach and myself. Princess Punk spent the night at My Mom’s.

French toast from homemade bread stuffed with caramelized bananas and cream cheese frosting…

The Peach approved. And I posted it on Facebook to make Princess Punk jealous.

I think I’ll play Sims 3 on my new laptop while I wait for The Peach to slip into a carb-induced coma.

Apparently my yahoo account got hacked. So I had to change my password (which it was really time to do anyway, I think I’d had that one for a year and a half) and send “Dont open those! I’m sorry!” emails to everyone in my address book and post a “Dont open those! I’m sorry!” status on facebook in case I missed anyone.

One of my coworkers came in and advised me, her personal email had just been sent a “weird link” from mine. At that point I had already fixed everything since I knew right away from the 6 random link texts sent to me by… Me. But I decided that I should just briefly give a heads up to the (very few) other co-workers who’s personal email may have been spammed.

So I got to my friend Bear’s office (he reads this and will be absolutely tickled he’s important enough to warrant a “blog name.” I think…) and gave him the standard warning, “Be careful of any email that… blah blah blah…” And I started to leave his office and he said,

I spent about half the day Tuesday thinking it was Monday, and then my calendar reminded me about Princess Punk’s therapy appointment.

I spent a good portion of Wednesday thinking it was Tuesday, despite the fact that I had to drop the girls off at My Mom’s at 6am because The Zen Master was working and then pick them up at 4 because The Zen Master was teaching Tae Kwon Do. This only happens on Wednesday, yet my brain refused to process that information.

Today? I spent today freaking out at work because I still had so much to do and it was already Friday.

Does this mean that tomorrow I’m going to miss work because I’ll think it’s Saturday? Or will I go into work but neglect my normal Friday wrap-up?